Rat Bite
by Katkero
Summary: After being injured, Azog is no longer the same warrior he once was.


First it barely stings. Then the arm comes to the end of its motion and it's gone; Azog's eyes turn to the point of severance where there should be pain, and pain comes. Afterwards he is not ashamed that it struck him to his knees, or that he screamed, or that he had to be dragged off the battlefield, delirious with pain and fury. And why should he be ashamed? His flesh had been violated, the defiler had been defiled. Even if someone has got something to say about that, no one dares to do so.

Azog never sees his arm again. The orcs cannot return to the battlefield to look for it, and indeed it would be difficult to find among the other dead. Azog has no logical reason to want it back, except the want itself and the fact that even though it is dead, the arm belongs to him. After some days spent in negotiation, the healers decide to give him a new arm, and Azog commands them to do so as though it was his own idea.

The medicine of orcs focuses on results at the expense of gentleness. Azog is offered potions that dull the pain, but as the mindless agony cuts through them all, the healers shrug and twist and position the forged arm in the previous one's stump with little kindness until the spike shaft is secured between the radius and the ulna. Azog, for his part, screams and curses at them until he nearly falls unconscious. The treatment comes close to killing him. Like Thorin, it fails to do so.

The recovery lasts month after month, and in that time Azog comes to know well all the difficulties caused by the loss of the original limb. The one that confuses him the most is the fact that every moment he is aware of the hand no longer being there, but still some part of his brain tries to use it with stubbornness that is not pure force of habit. The new hand does fool him quite well at times; once the stump is healed, the hand sits secure in it and is even good for lifting great weights, as Yazneg later comes to learn. But one day Azog attempts to grab something, and it takes him several seconds to realise why his fingers won't bend like they're supposed to. He stares at the new hand quietly and understands that even though it is planted into his body, it is alien, an iron thorn in his flesh. The pain is part of him. This limb is not.

It suits him well that most of the time he is aware of the intruder that presses against his bones and muscles every time it moves. The discomfort infuriates him and gives him something to concentrate on. The occasional ache suppresses the ache of the original limb that still haunts him under everything else. Azog wonders if this is how everyone else with similar injuries feels. He has never thought to ask his fellow orcs, let alone his victims. It is an excellent opportunity for the first spark of understanding and compassion, and then the spark is gone without leaving anything of itself to smoulder in its place. And it's just as well. Next time Azog sees Thorin, he'll cut off the dwarf's head.

Next time eventually comes and with it the long awaited chance for revenge, but Azog no longer fights in the front lines without hesitation as he did when he was younger, for he now knows the price of a moment of carelessness. He knows in his flesh what it feels like when a cornered rat stands on its hind legs and bites back. It must not be allowed to happen again. This time Azog attacks astride his mount, faster than Thorin, and the victory is his...

...except the rat has been cornered again, and its teeth are still sharp. "Bring me his head," Azog says, and the orc he addresses obeys at once. Perhaps he thinks the order a favour. Perhaps he thinks Azog a coward. Let him. Soon this will be over, after all.

The sword rises above Thorin's neck. Azog holds his breath as he remembers his hand on the handle of a knife a moment before he executed Thorin's grandfather. For a moment it is as though the metal hand can remember it, too. For one breath-taking second it is a single solid bone from the elbow all the way to the ends of the fingertips; it is the membrane connecting the radius and the ulna, it is the blood in the veins of the forearm.

Azog's muscles tighten around the spike. Instead of resisting, the metal yields. Soon this will be over.


End file.
